Vallius

Maybe, but we already have detailed tooltips for every part, facility and planet. Unless we're planning on going into the backstory of KSP, I'm not really sure that would add much to the game.

I know, right? Seriously, we have a dozen different kinds of wings, 3 kinds of rover wheels, 4 types of parachutes, and 3 sizes of lander legs. We really should have at least a couple more options for landing gear. Bonus points if it could fold into the body of our spaceplanes like landing gear on real aircraft.

SQUAD should seriously consider getting in contact with Jonathan Franklin (I don't know his username on the forums). He's dedicating a symphony to Kerbal Space Program! He usually writes film scores, but is working on this for fun! You can hear his first movement at https://soundcloud.com/jfranklincomposer/symphony-of-the-kerbals-oveture. I'm sure there are at least half-a-dozen composers who would love to see their work added to the official soundtracks.

Knowledge is power--especially in Kerbal Space Program. That seems like something that should really be in the base game After all, landers have a distance-to-surface radar. Why not a slope indicator? I guess I'm hoping against hope that squad will add this functionality to landers in the future. Tell you what, if there's no better way when 1.0 finally comes out, I'll happily adopt Kerbal Engineer.

Yes, but I don't do full blown asparagus in career mode anymore. Now I'll usually only do 2-radial tanks rather than the classic six. Between funds and the expense of a failure, it's just not worth it most of the time.

Thank you all for the good advice. I don't do mods, other than Astronaut Visual Pack and Chatter (which are immersive, rather than gameplay changing). So it looks like the best advice I've seen is. 1. Wide lander with a low center of mass. 2.a Come in low and orbit once or twice to grab the right landing site. It also lets you spot large inclines on airless bodies. 2.b Kill horizontal velocity before touchdown. (I'm usually pretty good at this, unless I panic at the last minute--see 4.) 3. Extra torque and RCS for the landing stage. (I can't believe I never thought of that before! I'll have to try it.) 4. Don't Panic! (My big mistake on my last Mun landing, other than insufficient torque).

It's happened to us all at least once. You bring down your carefully designed lander to the surface of a new world. You've only got about 500 m before you make history, when you suddenly realize that the "flat" landing spot is actually a 30 degree slope! You scramble to reorient your craft, try to shift it over a bit to a flatter surface, but it's no use. You hope against hope that your meticulously planned mission will get a lucky break In retrospect, not the best choice of words... , and touch down at 5 m/s--horizontal velocity. If you're really lucky, Jebediah was driving and you can manage to salvage enough of your ship to get back into orbit. If your fortune was like my latest Mun mission with Munsen Kerman, your crew will survive, but your ship will break to bits. How do you veterans avoid or mitigate Lander Tipping Disorder (LTD)? I've started designing ridiculously wide landers, and I've seen a good tutorial suggesting making final landing from a 5 km orbit (on the Mun). Any advice for landing on other bodies?

Kerbal Space Program is the first game I've played that always keeps me learning and growing. It re-awakened my fascination with rocket science and spaceflight, and even inspired me to apply for engineering work in the aerospace industry (I'll let you guys know if I get the second interview with ATK). My accomplishments there aren't just level grinding or a high score--it's mastery of orbital mechanics! I can ride with Jebediah into the great unknown, and share his goofy smile even for routine missions. This is the only game I've played that I'll routinely pull out a calculator for to check my design (I know there's a mod for that, but I like making things hard), and have fun doing that. One of the things I love about this game is that I'm not artificially a more capable engineer or pilot just because I've logged a lot of hours. Every Mun landing is just as dangerous as the last, unless I've personally improved my techniques a design. My rockets are just as capable of crashing as they were on day one (although SQUAD made the part connections more sturdy). If I do great things in this game, it's because I learned something. I wouldn't call it the greatest game of all time for all people for one simple fact. It makes you think, and requires long term planning (so to speak) to get the most out of it. Not everyone wants that it a game. So I don't see it outperforming say--The Sims in terms of sales.

More science parts is fine, but I think I'd prefer it if SQUAD gave the existing parts more in game functionality.

I'd be all for this! It would give me a real reason to use science points on space-plane technology. It's seems kind of ridiculous how much of the tech tree is dedicated towards parts that have no use beyond Kerbin and Laythe.

Maybe the endgame could open up elaborate and difficult contracts that reward awesome parts (not really sci-fi, just bigger/better versions of our favorites), rather than the normal currencies. There could be one or two unique missions for every body in the Kerbal Solar system that have very restrictive requirements. Examples of potential Endgame contracts and respective rewards: Jool: Successfully do a grand-tour of the Joolian system from a single launch. Unlocks a 2.5 m nuclear engine. Eve: Manned mission to and from Eve's surface would open up deep-space refueling. Moho: (May need to complete Duna Mission first) Set up a mining colony and return rocks to Kerbin. Unlocks a larger nuclear battery, or maybe even a nuclear reactor for energy. Duna: Manned mission to poles and various special locations. Opens up Interplanetary Mining.

I want to send a manned mission to Duna! Despite my time with this game, I've yet to land on Duna. I was getting ready for an epic mission with my first career-mode save when 0.24 came out and broke my plans (apparently my difficult to launch colossus costs almost 900,000 funds). I'm still debating about whether or not I should build an orbital space station before 0.90. Space stations are fun to build, but I'm a miser with my launch money.

The issue has to do with how physics is represented in KSP. Someone can refine the exact distance but anything more than 2.5 km from the focused craft is considered destroyed when in atmosphere.

Until you've gotten into orbit for the first time, I'd recommend not implementing any of the strategies at the Admin center. Unless your game starts with money, rep and science to burn, this could actually hamper your space program in its early stages! They have a start-up cost which can be quite steep, and you need reputation early on to get the more lucrative testing contracts.

Are you holding orientation with an SAS module, an RCS System, fins or some combination of the three? I'd recommend checking the following for troubleshooting. 1. In any case your attitude systems should work much better if they are close to your center of mass for the current stage. (Note that this will change as you go from the launch pad to orbit). 2. Sometimes if you have multiple SAS modules, they will compete to orient your spacecraft. 3. Larger vehicles respond more sluggishly to an SAS lock than smaller ones, unless you're using well-placed vernier engines. 4. If none of these things seems to work, or you've accounted for them already, then I'd probably try to use the keyboard for a change.

To save a rover as a sub-assembly, you need build it off of a root part you don't want to save. You're only allowed to save sub-assemblies of non-root parts (I hope they'll change this in the future). For now, I'd recommend 1. Saving the sections of your lander above and below the command module as separate sub-assemblies. 2. Delete the command module, select a probe core for your first part. 3. build the lander below the probe core using your sub-assemblies and a command module. 4. Now you can detach the entire lander and save it as a sub-assembly. 5. To attach the lander to a larger craft, hold down the ALT (or mod key) to attach it by the docking port to your mother ship. Hope that helps!

Yesterday, I got Carson Kerman killed under embarrassing circumstances. Today, Jeb, Bob and Dunmy Kerman held a memorial service for him.

I would have felt worse about this pointless tragedy, but those chicken enchiladas were really good.

Thank you, Squad, for listening to your community in the recent Engine performance boost controversy! Obviously not everyone will like every feature in the final game, but I appreciate your willingness to pull a controversial feature. My respect has gone up even more for you guys!

It really depends on how this plays out. The science boost is perfect. The thrust and fuel efficiency--depends. Are we talking about main thrusters having more ISP, or just less wasted RCS when I try to lock my orientation with SAS? The latter possibility actually makes sense, and the former breaks immersion for me.

I speculate that there was some trouble in making the flagpoles both destructible and animated. Anyone at SQUAD care to comment?

When you're loading up your backpack to head to school or work, and think to yourself, "I sure have a lot of dead-weight to deliver this payload. Maybe there's a more efficient design." True story, happened yesterday.

@Pecan: You may want to edit your Post title. The context wasn't clear. Really? I think it's a little premature to ask for a sequel when we haven't yet got KSP 1.0. That being said, I too am curious to see where SQUAD goes once KSP is finally complete. There was a polygon article where SQUAD mentioned creating a feature film or something. http://www.polygon.com/features/2014/1/27/5338438/kerbal-space-program

Alternatively, SQUAD might be planning to do one of two things. They could either nerf science rewards, or make part unlocks become much more expensive.

One way to fix this would be to cancel out Launchpad and runway collision effects until after the vehicle has been loaded. Or yeah, maybe make them a little bit hardier.